


Legacy

by PearlyWrites



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Elemental Magic, F/M, Gen, Suspense, except with new characters, get ready for some weird ninjago crap, i just took major plot points and kinda put them in a better order, it seems like an original story but i promise it's not, this isn't the ninjago you're used to or looking for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-03-13 00:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13559004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PearlyWrites/pseuds/PearlyWrites
Summary: "Everything you know about our history, everything you know about our culture, is wrong. We have been led to live a lie and with my new knowledge of the past, I intend to correct it and save Ninjago. Are you with me?""... If it means saving my family, then absolutely.""Good. But first, we'll need to prepare."~Everybody knows you don't mess with Chinwah - he has complete control over everything and people who oppose him disappear. Raquel's content to mind her own business; at least until a science experiment gone awry seems to say she has magical powers and her cousin goes missing after an accusation related to her newfound powers. With her cousin Azure, her friend Flint, and tutor Frieza by her side, it seems everything can and will go wrong in their quest to save their messed up little Ninjago.





	1. Burning

**Author's Note:**

> So... this was supposed to be a comic but comics are hard and then this was just supposed to be a script for the comic but then it turned into this and now... well, I've spent way too long developing these characters to just let them. Enjoy.

Frieza was, hands down, the weirdest person Raquel knew.

And she didn't mean that in a mean way; in fact, they'd been best friends for years, ever since Frieza became her home math tutor. It was just a simple fact - Frieza was different from others. She spoke like someone who'd memorized the dictionary, she walked precisely and decidedly, and she spent her free time studying old blueprints of an unknown origin. She was just… _different._

Frieza seemed to know this, too: when strangers made comments to her about her behavior, Frieza would stare at them as if that were obvious and would usually ask something along the lines of what their point was. She made a rather odd appearance too, with her bright blonde locks of curled hair, slender build, and confident posture, yet obviously not associated with any cheerleaders or popular kids. No matter how long she spent in the sun, she was always incredibly pale, with little or no color to her cheeks, and an eagle-like gaze that felt like it was pinning you under glass for observation. Many people became uncomfortable just being near her.

Frieza also didn't have very many friends.

Raquel thought about this, as she sometimes did, when she went through her morning routine in preparation of school. Frieza didn't seem to have a morning routine...? She woke up at some point in her permanent guest room, tinkered around with her latest project, and then would be ready to go with Raquel perfectly on time. Sometimes she joined Raquel in breakfast, but usually she didn't. And that was just how it was. She didn't cause unnecessary trouble and she got good grades, so, despite her odd behavior, she was perfectly fine by the standards of the government. Nobody really cared.

“Raquel? Do you have your science project ready?” her mother called up the stairs to her room.

“Yeah, Mom,” she shouted back, putting all the little baggies she would need into a larger plastic bag and shoving that into her backpack. Throwing her backpack over her shoulder, Raquel headed downstairs just as Frieza left her room next door (last night was one of those occasions when she chose to stay the night). “You ready for today’s thing in chemistry?” Raquel asked.

Frieza’s startling blue gaze seemed focused elsewhere, giving the normally composed girl a rather distracted look. “My demonstration is not until tomorrow, but yes…” she replied absentmindedly, fiddling with the perfect curls of her blonde hair. (Raquel had always been secretly jealous of Frieza’s hair - she could barely get her own frizzy ginger hair pulled into a ponytail, let alone style it as well as Frieza.)

“You okay?” Raquel inquired, raising an eyebrow in concern. “You look… distracted.”

Frieza frowned slightly as they reached the main floor of the house. “I have an extremely important test I am conducting tonight,” she said. “I am double-checking everything mentally to ensure it goes as smoothly as possible.”

“Oh,” was all Raquel could manage. “Is it for school?”

“No, it is a personal experiment. However, if successful, it could have immense impact on my plans for the future.”

“Hmm.” But Frieza wasn't elaborating on what she testing, so she clearly wanted to keep it hidden, at least for now. She was secretive like that - she wouldn't tell anyone about what she was doing in detail unless she thought it wasn’t very important. But now wasn't the time to worry about that - their school bus was about to arrive and today was NOT a day Raquel could miss.

“Ready for school, you two?” Raquel’s mother greeted, smiling brightly at them as she cleaned up the remnants of breakfast from earlier.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Raquel joked. Frieza just nodded absently.

Raquel’s mom smiled and turned back to her dishwashing. “Remember, Brooke doesn’t have piano lessons after school today, so you and Azure will need to stop by her class and pick her up. Assuming she’s well enough to go to school today,” she said.

“I’ll remember, thanks, Mom!” Raquel ran up to mother to place a quick kiss on her cheek before hurrying out the door with Frieza to catch their bus. The ride was the same as usual, with her cousin Azure notably absent; though that was expected on the days she didn’t have to go to class early, since her mother (Raquel’s aunt) would make her drive her younger sister Brooke to the elementary school. It was a little strange, since Raquel thought Brooke was still sick, but perhaps she’d gotten better over the weekend.

 

 

 

Once they got to school, Raquel and Frieza went their separate ways, since they had different classes for first period, but that meant meeting up with Azure in a bit, since they DID share first period. Raquel was in the midst of unpacking her chemistry project for the end of the day when one of her newer friends, Flint, approached her. He was a tall kid, with purposefully messy black hair and a rather sturdy build, with dark skin and darker eyes. “Hey,” he said, looking and acting cool and casual, as usual. “Azure not here?”

Azure, as part of her honors program thing, had volunteered to help mentor Flint when he arrived earlier in the year as a transfer student. The two had become quick friends and Raquel suspected Flint may hold romantic feelings for her cousin. She didn’t mind as much as she normally would, though, because she found Flint to be easy to get along with. He had a nice, secure aura to him that just made him feel… safe. Raquel shook her head. “But she’ll probably be here soon. Whenever she’s not on the bus, she’s either sick or taking Brooke to school, and I bet she was taking Brooke to school.”

Flint nodded, crossing his arms as his dark brown gaze drifted to somewhere beyond Raquel. “Sounds good. You still can’t text, then, I assume?”

“Nah, phone’s still acting weird. Should be getting it fixed soon, though.”

“Cool. Keep in touch, then?”

“Of course, since I gotta make sure you don’t try something with Azure,” Raquel teased, only half joking.

Flint chuckled a little. “Not on my life. Catch you after school!” Then he went his way, leaving Raquel alone at the lockers again before she headed off to first hour.

 

 

 

“You weren’t on the bus earlier, is Brooke better?”

Azure nodded, sliding into the seat next to Raquel. Her cousin was a little short for most girls her age, but she looked more mature with her brown-black hair cut short like a boy’s and her tendency to wear nicer clothes that complemented her complexion, which was darker than Frieza’s but lighter than Raquel’s. “Her fever broke a couple days ago, so Mom made her go today, despite her complaints.” Raquel smirked at that - few people actually _enjoyed_ school, and even amazing student Frieza admitted that school was almost always tedious and overcomplicated. “You have to present today in chemistry, right?” Azure continued.

“Yeah. Didn’t have to put too much effort into it, since the teacher preassigned topics,” Raquel joked. Azure, however, didn’t react much, as her stormy blue eyes focused somewhere off in the distance. Raquel frowned. She didn’t think herself to be a very demanding person, but when both of her close friends were more or less ignoring her, it kind of irritated her. “Hey, what’s up with you? Frieza was distracted earlier, too.”

Azure’s gaze snapped back to her like a latch locking into place. “Sorry, I’ve got something planned tonight. It’s... got a lot of factors to take into account, so I can’t help thinking about it.”

Raquel raised an eyebrow. “That’s basically what Frieza said earlier. Are you two doing something?”

Azure hesitated, making Raquel more suspicious. “Yes,” Azure finally admitted, “and we _do_ plan on getting you caught up soon. Tonight, probably. Just… we wanna make sure Frieza’s part of the plan goes smoothly. Everything kind of hinges on her right now.” That made Raquel frown deeply. She had considered the three of them pretty close, so it seemed odd that the other two would deliberately keep something secret from her.

Before she could push further, she was interrupted by the usual morning announcement immediately after the bell rang: “Good morning, Ninjago High! Today’s lunch is hot dogs and hamburgers, with soccer going on in the intramural portion of the day. Remember to report any unusual or suspicious activity to your school superiors! Have a great Monday!”

She tried pressing Azure for more answers, but her cousin was just as stubborn as Raquel. “Just wait ‘til tonight,” Azure insisted. “We’ll get you caught up then.”

Aside from Azure’s sudden stubbornness, the rest of Raquel’s day went by quickly and without incident. It finally came time to the last period of the day, chemistry. She had never liked her teacher, Mr. Veil, as he was often overbearing, overly strict, and just irritating. It was the one class Raquel shared with both Azure and Frieza, who agreed that he was a rather despicable person. Once arriving in class, the two girls didn't speak much, aside from ‘confirming’ something with each other. Raquel’s interest and suspicion arose again but Mr. Veil called her up before she could grill them for details again.

“Now, Smith, I believe you're presenting on… exothermic reactions?” Mr. Veil drawled from his reclining chair in the corner.

“Yep! And I brought a little something extra to make things more interesting!” Raquel grinned as she began to set up on the front table by taking out the vials from home and turning on the Bunsen burner.

“Extra?” Raquel could hear the sneer in his voice, even without looking at him. “I do hope you still plan on completing the assignment, Smith, and not disregarding it in favor of getting a laugh out of your friends.”

“Of course I’m gonna complete the assignment!” Raquel said, somewhat affronted. She frowned at the teacher, finishing setting up. Why would she plan on not completing it? Sure, Mr. Veil was awful so she didn’t always put in as much effort as she should, but she wasn’t definitely wasn’t the worst student in the class. Where was this accusation coming from?

“Don’t back-talk me, Smith,” Mr. Veil snapped, leaning forward in his chair with an angry look on his face. The other students began shifting restlessly at their desks, murmuring uneasily to each other. Even Frieza and Azure looked concerned. Mr. Veil was known for being rude and unbearable but this was straight up confrontational. “Keep up this attitude and that’ll be detention for you.”

Raquel’s cheeks burned in frustration and embarrassment. She kept her mouth shut, though, just this once, because she needed to at least pass this class to be able to graduate in a few months. Arranging the little vials from home in a nice row and ignoring Mr. Veil’s fierce gaze, Raquel cleared her throat to try and prevent her voice from cracking. She then began introducing the various household chemicals she had brought and why. As she talked and demonstrated, she grew more confident and eventually pushed Mr. Veil to the back of her mind as her excitement for the project grew again. “And now, just for fun,” she said, bringing out a little baggy she had tucked away on the table, “I brought a bit of different salts for something cool to look at!”

“Really, Smith? Looking at salts?” Mr. Veil interjected rudely.

“Not just looking at the salts! Watch what happens when I -”

“Smith, I think you’re done. You’ve actually managed not to utterly fail this project so I suggest you end this here before you burn the building down.”

“ _Not_ fail- what is your issue with me today?!” Raquel cried, facing the teacher. “I did just fine and since I know everybody else in class is practically bored to tears, I figured I’d do a harmless little extra show-”

Mr. Veil actually slammed his hands down on his desk, causing Raquel to flinch and knock the glass off the burner. “Enough, Smith! One hour detention! If you keep this up, I will fail you on this assignment!”

That, to Raquel’s frazzled, upset mind, sounded like a challenge and she was never one to back down from a challenge. “No! That’s not fair at all! I did everything you asked and _nothing wrong_!” Looking back on it, she should have realized how much warmer she felt and why it was unusual, even considering how angry she was, but caught up in the moment, that didn’t matter. 

At least not until one of her classmates shrieked, “ _Her hand is on fire_!”

Everything after that happened so fast that she needed someone to retell the events later in order to keep them straight. She looked over at her left hand, which had been accidentally hovering over the open burner, with a feeling of disconnect to realize that yes, it was indeed engulfed in flame. This knowledge didn’t affect her in a way she supposed it should, like panicking. Instead, all that went through her head was, _I guess it_ is _on fire._ It barely even occurred to her to think that it didn't hurt at all.

A lot of people started shouting right then and there, with Azure and Frieza surging out of their seats towards her just as Mr. Veil reached towards her, an ugly snarl curling his lips. She thought she heard Frieza say, “We’ll take her to the nurse’s office,” in a rather calm but authoritative voice before she was quickly escorted out of the classroom.

The moment the three girls were out of earshot from the classroom and the teacher, Frieza said, “Once we get to the office, you go wipe the cameras while I bandage her up.” It took Raquel’s fried brain a second to realize the blonde was talking to Azure, not her.

“Wait,” Raquel managed to blurt out. “Wipe the cameras? Why?” Frieza’s only answer as they stumbled down the hallway was a sidelong glance of grim certainty.

“We'll tell you later,” Azure whispered. “I promise.” Soon the main office came into view and they hurried into the nurse’s section, which was empty. Frieza quickly located a roll of bandage while Azure slipped off somewhere else. Raquel took that moment to actually look at her hand again, which was (thankfully) no longer on fire.

“My hand is fine,” Raquel said without thinking. She turned it over and stared at it. Not a single scratch or burn mark anywhere. “... My hand is _fine._ ” She would later learn she had gone into shock from the overexcitement and scare of lighting on fire, but that one fact managed to worm its way into her head and alarm her.

“I was afraid of that,” Frieza murmured, facing her and beginning to wrap Raquel’s hand in bandage.

“Why are you doing that if my hand is fine?” Raquel asked, staring blankly at the off-white material.

“Because nobody else needs to know that your hand is fine. They need to think your hand is burned,” Frieza said with emphasis, giving Raquel a strange look with those piercing blue eyes. Raquel still didn’t understand what Frieza meant but she had proven herself time and time again to be highly intelligent, so maybe she understood something Raquel didn’t. Either way, Frieza had never led her astray before, so she trusted her.

Azure joined up with them again just as they were leaving the infirmary. “Did you do it?” Frieza asked in an undertone.

The black-haired girl nodded. “Fried the system, too, just to be safe.”

Frieza’s mouth twisted as if chewing something unsavory. “An unnecessary risk, but thank you anyway.”

It seemed that the three girls had gotten away with whatever mischief they had been up to, at least until one of the school officers rounded the corner on them. “What are you three doing out of class?” he asked, eyes narrowing. “Bell doesn’t ring for another thirty minutes.”

“My cousin burned her hand, sir,” Azure immediately spoke up. “We were just making sure she got treated quickly.”

The officer leaned back slightly and glanced in the direction they had just left from. “But the nurse isn’t in right now,” he said slowly.

“We are seniors, sir,” Frieza stated. “We are quite capable of treating minor burns ourselves, especially since adults won’t always be around to help us.”

The officer didn’t seem to like Frieza’s words, but before he could argue any further, a familiar voice shouted, “Azure, Raquel, oh my heck, are you okay?!” Down the hall ran Flint, looking adequately concerned, despite his usual level-headedness. “I heard screaming from the class next door and somebody said you got burnt? Are you okay?” He looked the three over, showing an excessive amount of concern. “Come on, let’s get back to class and call your mom, get you any homework you might need if you go to the hospital later.” The tall, dark-haired teen led Azure almost forcefully down the hall past the officer, although not before nodding in his direction respectfully.

“Flint? What are you doing here?” Azure hissed under her breath. Frieza stared accusingly at Flint from the other side of Raquel as if wondering the same in a more suspicious fashion.

“Getting you out of trouble,” he whispered back, looking around as inconspicuously as possible. “I wasn’t lying about the screaming part, but it didn’t make it around class _who_ got hurt. Glad I caught you when I did.”

“How much do you know?” Frieza asked quietly, staring intensely at Flint, although that seemed like an odd question to Raquel.

“More than you might think,” Flint muttered, which made Frieza furrow her eyebrows.

The group was quick to return to the girls’ classroom (with Flint heading back to his own room) and after they got seated again, everything went by in a blur again. A few students had presented since they left and a few more presented after they arrived, but Raquel didn’t remember any of it. Time passed in a haze, and the only thing Raquel _did_ recall was that she couldn't make any sense of what had just happened to her. By all means, she should be severely injured from her hand _literally lighting on fire_ . And yet… she wasn’t. It was impossible, and her mind refused to acknowledge it happened. It must have been… a coincidence. A trick of her eyesight. She’d gotten lucky. It only _looked_ like her hand was on fire, the burner had just flared up for a second. Yeah. That must have been it.

Anything to calm her increasingly troubled thoughts.


	2. Washed Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The problems are just stacking higher.

Before long, the final bell rang and even though she was supposed to have detention, Raquel was ushered out of the classroom and down the hall by her friends. The three were silent for a while in the midst of the crowded building until they got to the bus drop-off area, then Frieza spoke. “You need to go pick up Brooke, correct?” Speaking to Azure again. When the black-haired girl nodded, Frieza continued, “I need to return home immediately and begin the experiment. With this… new development, time is of the essence. Make sure you all get home safely.”

Finally, Frieza actually looked Raquel in the eye. “Azure will explain everything on the way home. Please try to keep an open mind.” She hesitated. “And stay safe. Call me if anything else happens.” Then she let go of Raquel’s arm and disappeared into the crowd around the busses.

With a gentle nudge, Azure escorted Raquel around the grounds to where her little car was parked and they were both only slightly surprised to see Flint waiting for them. “Can I catch a ride home?” Flint called out with a strained smirk. He was trying his best to appear casual, only those who knew him would be able to tell the difference. The three teens climbed into the vehicle but no one spoke again until after they’d left the parking lot.

“So,” Raquel started, a little louder than she intended. “That was a day.” Flint snorted from the back seat.

Azure let out a long breath. “Oh boy. Where do I start…?” After a moment of thought, she asked, “What do you know about the mythology of Ninjago?”

“Mythology?” Sounded something more up Azure’s alley than hers. “Not much, I guess. About as much as everyone else.”

“Flint?”

The boy shrugged. “Only that there’s a bunch of conflicting theories and no real evidence that any are true.”

“Okay. Sounds about right. So…” Another pause. “About a month ago? Two months? Frieza was in the public library, you know, like she often is, and apparently she found an old scroll. Like, _really_ old. When she read it, it told a story of Ninjago’s creation that neither of us had ever heard. It claimed there was this first Master that created everything on the island from special elemental powers and then granted those powers to chosen individuals. When the individuals had kids, the powers were passed on and each became known as an ‘elemental master’.”

Raquel took a minute to process all that. “Okay… that’s cool and all, but what the crap does that have to do with what happened today?”

Azure arched an eyebrow and gave her a sidelong glance. “Fire was one of the elements she found listed by name.”

Raquel frowned. She didn’t like where this was going. “Wait. Are you trying to claim that I have some kind of magic power over fire? Because that’s crazy. This is real life, not fantasy. So I managed not to get any burns when my hand… got burned. It could just be a coincidence, for all we know, I…” The words died in her throat as she remembered Frieza’s last words to her: _Please try to keep an open mind_.

Azure nodded slowly. “I know you think that, and I’ll get to why in a minute, but listen to this: you remember a few weeks ago, our last family reunion?”

“...Yeah.”

“Remember when the power went out for no reason for a second and everybody thought it was just a weird power surge?” Raquel had been occupied listening to her aunt and mother exchange hilarious stories, but she did vaguely remember that. “That was me.”

Raquel blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I had -” Azure stopped and blushed. “Cousin Aiden had brought his friend Nick with him and he dared me to kiss him, so I did -” Raquel glanced back at Flint to see if he reacted in some way to the news but he continued staring out the window, “- then I felt something weird and that was when the power surged.” Raquel frowned and opened her mouth to protest but Azure beat her to it. “I know you’re thinking, ‘it must have been a coincidence’, but I _know_ what I felt in that moment. It was like energy just welled up in my chest and exploded outward. Nick even stumbled back and joked that I must have accidentally shocked him from static electricity. But it was _way_ too strong to just be static electricity. And I even thought it WAS a coincidence, until I mentioned it in passing to Frieza last week and she got all intense - you know, like she does when she’s really invested in something? Then she told me about the scroll, and the elements listed. Then she told me about what happened to her in chemistry a few weeks before that.”

Flint glanced back up towards the front seats again but still remained silent.

“You know what happens when you put some laundry detergent in water?”

Raquel hesitated. “It dissolves.”

“It gives off a little bit of heat,” Flint put in. He must have taken that same class.

Azure nodded. “Frieza did that in her science class a while ago, and you know what she told me happened? It _froze._ ”

Raquel pursed her lips. “… Okay, but _how?_ ”

“That’s what Frieza wanted to know! So she looked in any library she could access, trying to find any science book that could give her some hint on why that happened when she stumbled across the scroll. Some of the first elements listed? Lightning and ice. She’s got this wild theory that our kingdom’s history was deliberately erased and that what she read in the scroll tells the truth about all this.”

Raquel shook her head slowly, disbelievingly. “Flint?” she asked weakly. “You don’t believe any of this… craziness, do you?”

“Yeah, I do,” Flint replied easily and almost immediately.

“What?!”

“Listen,” he said, suddenly leaning forward towards her with a strange gleam in his eyes. “Ever since I was a kid, I always felt more comfortable outwards, with my feet on the ground. My mom joked it’s ‘cause I was born wild, but then things started happening. We’d be rock-climbing and I’d slip and catch myself on a ledge that wasn’t there before. I’d kick a big rock, just for fun, and it’d go flying. I thought I was just strong and lucky, but then I overheard Frieza talking to Azure and it just… makes more sense than anything else I’ve been told.”

Raquel’s head spun. Azure murmured, “I wondered if you had heard…”

Flint had the decency to look sheepish. “Yeah… I don't usually eavesdrop, but it seemed important, and…” He shrugged.

They lapsed into silence again for a moment while Raquel tried to process everything she’d heard. “If you have questions, now is the time to ask,” Azure said. “We're almost to Brooke's school, and we won't have much privacy once we pick her up.”

“I… do have one,” Raquel said slowly. “If you guys all knew about this for so long, why didn't you tell me?”

“... We wanted to protect you,” Azure whispered. “This is dangerous stuff, especially if Frieza’s findings on missing people are true, and we just wanted to keep you safe. I'm so sorry, Raquel, I hated to keep you in the dark, but Frieza and I agreed it was safer if you just didn't know until we were sure you had powers, too.”

Raquel frowned but sympathy welled up in her heart. Her cousin was, at heart, a kind and honest person. Raquel should have realized that her friends had only the best of intentions. “I… understand,” she said quietly. “Thanks.”

Azure smiled in relief.

Then Flint spoke up again. “I have a question. You mentioned something about missing people?”

Azure knitted her eyebrows together in concern. “Yeah, Frieza said she went digging through old news stories and found little news stories of strange natural disasters happening, like someone’s house becoming covered with plants overnight. She found the exact address, did some more digging, and sure enough, that particular house once held a little girl who vanished from city records around the same time the news story came out.”

“So what you’re saying is…”

“That girl must have had plant manipulation powers of some kind and was abducted because of it,” Azure confirmed.

Raquel let a long breath out. “Didn’t expect Frieza to be the conspiracy type…” she muttered.

“But she certainly does her homework,” Flint added quietly.

Resting her elbows on her legs, Raquel leaned forward and put her head in her hands. She felt light-headed from the overflow of new and confusing information.

Azure glanced at her sympathetically. “I know, it’s a ton to take in, but time really isn’t on our side. We gotta move fast.”

“What’s our next move?” Flint asked, as Brooke’s elementary school finally came into view.

“Well, _our_ first move is to get home as soon as possible,” Azure said, pulling into the parking lot. “Then we’ll talk to Frieza and come up with a plan.” She parked the car, turned the engine off, and got out of the car. Raquel and Flint followed shortly after.

The school grounds were always swarming with small children at the end of the day and Brooke was supposed to meet them in the parking lot anyway, so the three teens waited around with a heavy silence hanging over them. Raquel desperately wanted to say something, _anything_ , to get her cousin and friend talking again, but her frazzled mind just couldn’t come up with anything. So instead, she just tried to make sense of everything she’d just heard - learned? Since it was all apparently true… Raquel shook her head a little. She couldn’t wait to get home and sleep. Her poor brain probably couldn’t handle much more.

A few minutes passed. Then a few more. Parents, buses, and children came and went. But no sign of Brooke. Raquel wasn’t the only restless one, it seemed, as Flint shifted his weight from foot to foot impatiently and Azure fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. “Where is she?” Azure murmured, half to herself, as the number of children dwindled.

A few more minutes. Raquel had begun anxiously checking her phone repeatedly for the time, which in turn really only made her more anxious. Finally, Flint spoke the thought on everyone’s mind: “... Shouldn’t she be out by now?”

With a pinched expression, Azure said, “She always comes out to meet us. Maybe she got held up in class?” Raquel could believe that; while a good student, Brooke was a little on the rowdy and talkative side, behavior that was _not_ appreciated in the public school system. It didn’t happen often, but maybe this was one of those times.

… On the other hand, something just felt very, very wrong today. No amount of rationalizing could shake that. “Let’s go to her classroom and check,” Raquel decided, needing something to do before her head exploded.

With a shallow breath, Azure nodded, said, “Okay,” and led the way into the school building.

It took a few minutes of wandering through the mostly empty school, and passing a drinking fountain that had broken or something, leaking water everywhere, but the three teens eventually found the classroom that Brooke went to. Decorated like a typical 5th grade classroom but abandoned save for the teacher working at her desk in the corner, the three took a moment to make sure it was the right room and tentatively entered.

“I don’t see Brooke,” Flint muttered, something the two girls had noticed as well.

“Um, excuse me?” Azure meekly called out to the teacher, who jerked her head up at the sound.

“Oh, hello!” The teacher smiled widely, albeit nervously. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, um, I’m looking for my little sister.”

The teacher frowned a little. “I’m sorry, but all the students left a while ago. Is she in any after school clubs? I can show you where they meet -”

“No, no, she -” Azure sucked in a breath. “Her name is Brooke, Brooke Walker? She’s not in any clubs and she should’ve -” Azure stopped when she saw how pale the teacher had become. “What? What’s wrong?”

“I…” The teacher’s voice broke and she avoided looking at the teens. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Fear shot through Raquel and she stepped forward, demanding, “Where’s Brooke? What happened to her?” Was she hurt, maybe in the hospital? What on Earth could have happened to Brooke to cause the teacher to react like this?

“I -” the teacher glanced around nervously. “I’m not allowed to say,” she whispered hoarsely.

Raquel felt fury rise within her, ready to shout and demand the woman tell them everything and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Flint step forward with a hard expression, likely ready to do the same, but Azure beat them both to it. She crossed the room to the teacher’s desk in a few quick strides and knelt in front of it. “Please,” Azure pleaded, voice thick with emotion. “I need to know where my sister is.”

At the tender words, Raquel felt the rage drain out of her, leaving only exhaustion and fear. Azure was right; Brooke was their main concern and provoking people to get answers wasn’t going to help.

The teacher looked conflicted, clearly torn between keeping whatever secrecy she’d been sworn to or helping this clearly distressed relative of one of her students. Finally, she broke under Azure’s imploring gaze and choked out, “I - there was an accident with the drinking fountain outside, and normally we’d just charge it to the family but other teachers saw and some thought it was a much bigger problem, and the next thing I know, the _police_ are here, and…” She looked helplessly up at Azure’s terrified face.

“And then?” Flint growled, sounding more scared than angry.

“They took her,” she said simply. “And said she wasn’t coming back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reading through this again made me realize it's not nearly as good as the first chapter and I apologize for that. Lemme know if anything's unclear or weird and I'll clarify it as best I can in your comment AND in the chapter.


	3. Mind Tricks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really should be working on literally any of my other stories that I've posted here and promised to other people but this (the one that no one reads) is the one that's being written so... whatever I guess. Rip my other stories.

“She’s _gone?_ ”

“Yep. Just like that.”

There was a heavy silence from Frieza’s end before she murmured, “Time is even shorter than I thought…” In a louder voice, the older girl asked, “Do your parents know?”

“Raquel’s on the phone with them right now.” Though Azure’s words were calm, her tone was tight and close to panicked.

Another short pause. Then Frieza declared, “I’ll leave immediately, then.”

Azure’s eyes went wide. “What? Now?! Are - is it even ready? I -”

“It’s ready enough,” Frieza cut her off firmly. “Speed is currently far more important than a few safety precautions. I will return as soon as I can, hopefully in about a week.”

Azure tried to swallow around the enormous knot in her throat. “All right,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’ll tell the others.”

“Thank you.” One last pause. “Stay safe,” Frieza added in a much softer tone.

The corners of Azure’s lips jerked upwards in a tiny, involuntary smile. “We’ll try.” Azure imagined Frieza nodded, then the line went dead. Pocketing her cell phone, Azure turned back to Flint and Raquel, the latter of whom had finished talking to Azure’s parents and was pacing anxiously.

Raquel’s fiery amber gaze jerked up to Azure as soon as the redhead noticed she was also done. “Well?” she demanded, marching over as Flint followed. “What’s the plan?”

“Well…” Azure glanced around just to make absolutely sure they were alone on the school grounds. “Frieza was going to wait until tonight to leave, but with Brooke gone, she’s decided to leave now.” She gestured for the two teens to follow her, walking over to her car. “It’s… a little risky, but she’s right. We need to prepare now.”

“All right, I’ll bite. Prepare for what, and how?” Flint asked, climbing into his previous seat at the back row.

Azure clicked her seatbelt in. “Prepare to fight. It’s one thing to need to defend ourselves, but to get Brooke back?” She shook her head. “Who knows what we’ll have to go through? We need to be able to fight.”

“...Where is Frieza going?” Raquel asked in a frighteningly quiet and steady tone.

As she started the car and began to pull out of the empty parking lot, Azure glanced at her cousin, growing more concerned. Staring straight ahead with near murderous intent, Raquel’s tense form reminded Azure of a smoldering fire, ready to burst into flame at the slightest gust of air. But Azure knew she needed to be honest if any of this was going to work, so she told the truth.

“She’s going to find someone to teach her spinjitzu.”

  
  


After a bit of discussion and dropping unnecessary textbooks off at their respective homes, Azure took everyone back to her house to begin their personal training. Both of her parents were at work, and, despite Raquel sharing the news, wouldn’t be home until later, so she wasn’t able to talk to them about the current situation, but most of her was secretly grateful - she didn’t want to continue dwelling on the fact that her sister was gone. She wanted to _do_ something about it. 

The three decided that, because spinjitzu was an advanced form of martial arts that could help them use their powers to their advantage (according to Frieza, anyway), they should start with the basics of martial arts. After researching many self-defense articles and videos online, a tentative regiment was established, something that would hopefully both strengthen and stretch their bodies. They practiced and tested this for hours that night, taking occasional breaks to hydrate and discuss what else could be done. Flint suggested bringing in fake weapons at some point so they could train in armed combat, and Raquel and Azure agreed.

Later, Azure's parents came home and, though she didn’t share everything such as their secret elemental powers or Frieza going to learn spinjitzu, she informed them of their plan to fight for Brooke and eventually get her back. She fully expected them to protest, to say the idea was crazy and far too dangerous, but… they didn’t. Her mother and father shared a sad, almost knowing glance before pulling her close in a big hug and whispering how proud they were of her, for making such a brave choice and going to find her precious sister.

For the first time that day, it all came crashing down on Azure, that her sister was _gone_ , and she cried. Raquel and Flint joined the hug at some point, also teary-eyed, and Raquel whispered to her cousin, “We’ll get her back. I promise.”

  
  


Soon, the three fell into a steady schedule. They’d go to school, rush through classes as quickly as possible, then meet up at Azure’s car and drive to one of their three homes for training for the rest of the evening. (Raquel’s parents were eventually informed to the same level as Azure’s parents, as they were Brooke’s aunt and uncle, but Flint’s grandparents were kept in the dark. They agreed it was best as few people knew about this as possible.) They tried not to stay up too late so they could get enough sleep to function at school, but it became more and more difficult as they got into the swing of things, learning and memorizing various fighting techniques and moving on to practicing against each other. They tried a variety of styles and weapons (who knew fighting would be so complicated?) while trying to get as much done as they could. The three started keeping fake weapons in everyone’s bedrooms, since it was easier than having Flint lug them around between everyone’s houses in a discreet manner, and Azure knew her life had reached a new peak of weird when she didn’t even bat an eye at the katana and bo staff left on her bed one night.

Then, on the fifth night after Frieza left, a strange visitor showed up on their doorstep.

  
  


Azure was considering what weapon to try practicing with today, since swords didn’t seem to work for her as well as they did for Raquel, when she heard a knock at the front door. Frowning, she gestured at Flint to turn down the music they used to hide the sound of them sparring and went downstairs. She unlocked and opened the door to see a grinning boy, probably about her age but a little shorter than her, with neatly combed dirty blond hair and steely gray eyes that glinted. “Good evening!” he greeted extremely cheerfully, tugging on the lapels of his black suit coat. “Care to see a…” He brought a deck of cards out from his pockets with a flourish. “... magic trick?”

 _… Is this guy for real?_ Azure wondered, staring hard as the stranger actually wriggled his eyebrows.

“Uh, no thanks,” Azure said mustering as sincere a smile as she could and starting to close the door.

“It’ll be worth your time, Azure Walker.”

She stopped mid-swing and opened the door again, frowning. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“What is a stranger but a friend you haven’t met yet?” the boy quipped, winking. That only deepened her frown. So she didn’t? Then how did he know her name? “I recently transferred to the same school as you,” he clarified, tossing the deck of cards back and forth between his hands. “Thought you, Flint, and Raquel seemed pretty cool, so I figured I’d stop by and say hi!” His grin, if possible, seemed to grow even wider.

Azure was just becoming more and more confused. Before she could gather her thoughts enough to coherently ask one of the many questions floating around in her head, Flint came downstairs. “What’s the hold-up?” he called out.

“Ah, Flint!” the stranger beamed. “Just the guy I wanted to see! Could you bring Raquel down, too? Don’t want her missing out on the fun!”

Flint immediately stopped halfway down the stairs and frowned. “And you are…?”

The stranger raised a single finger, waggling it in a scolding manner. “Now, now, let’s get everyone together first, _then_ introductions, all right?”

… Who the crap _was_ this guy and who did he think he was?

Frowning deeper in suspicion, but not commenting, Flint turned around and called up the stairs. “Raquel, someone’s here to see us!” He came the rest of the way downstairs just as Raquel appeared running down and joined Azure at her side. Flint shot the black-haired girl a questioning look but Azure could only shrug helplessly. She was beginning to understand how Raquel must have felt when she explained everything five days ago…

She could’ve sworn she heard the stranger mutter, “Five days, huh?...” but it was so quiet, she wasn’t sure. Raquel came downstairs in that moment, raising an eyebrow at the peculiar scene before her. Azure’s cousin opened her mouth to speak but the stranger beat her to it. “Welcome, Raquel! So glad to meet you face to face!” He took a deep, exaggerated bow, proclaiming, “Alperan Sike, at your service.” He straightened, adding with a wink, “But please, call me Al! Now, for my first trick, I’ll need a volunteer!” Flint’s frown returned full force and he was about to tell this ‘Al’ off but he was interrupted. “Azure, perfect, thank you!” He spread the deck of cards open like a fan, facing down, and offered them to Azure. “Pick a card, any card,” he drawled with a goofy grin.

Azure, glancing at her friends for some kind of support but receiving only bewildered and suspicious looks, hesitantly pulled a card out. Holding it up to her face, she studied it for a moment: the five of diamonds. Azure was about to put it back, as she thought she was supposed to, when Al stopped her with a raise of his hand. “I am now going to guess your card,” he declared, smiling slightly when Raquel gaped. He studied Azure’s face intently for a few seconds, actually looking serious for once, before saying, “Is your card… the five of diamonds?”

Azure’s eyes barely had time to widen in astonishment when Flint snorted. “Please, I know that trick. The whole deck’s the same card-” The words died in his throat when Al flipped his hand around, showing off the cards and proving they, in fact, were _not_ all the same card. Flint scowled hard and argued, “Then it was rigged, there’s no way you could’ve -”

“Is there?” Al cut him off with a cocky grin, pushing all the cards back into the deck and shuffling them quickly without taking Azure’s card back. “You can even cut the deck if you want to,” Al offered, holding the deck out to the other boy.

Looking beyond suspicious but unsure what else to do, Flint grabbed the deck, split it more or less in half, and put the bottom half on top then handed it back to Al, who promptly fanned it back out and offered it once more upside-down with a quirked eyebrow. Flint gingerly pulled a card out and held it up in a way so no one else could see it. Straightening his back and donning that serious look once more, Al said, “Is your card… the ace of spades?”

Flint’s chocolate eyes widened in anger and astonishment turning the card around so Raquel and Azure could see that Al was right. Raquel had only begun to sputter, “But that’s - there’s _no way_ he -” when Al interrupted once more.

“Now for my next trick, I’m going to _read your minds_ !” he said dramatically, striking a pose as he tucked the cards into his jacket. Al rubbed the tips of his fingers against his temples, narrowing his eyes and glancing between the three of them. “Let’s see… you are preparing for the future! Important choices lie ahead, but what will you do? What you want, or what you _need_?” Al said cryptically.

Azure noticed Flint and Raquel relaxing, skepticism setting in again over the bewilderment. “Oh, c’mon, that’s hardly reading our minds,” Raquel complained, crossing her arms. “That could mean anything, not just -”

“Do you _really_ want me to say what you’re actually thinking?” Al cut in suddenly, a sharp gleam in his gray eyes. He tucked his arms behind his back as a cold chill crept up Azure’s spine. Was it possible he actually _knew-_ “You three are planning something pretty dangerous,” Al stated with a certainty that sent goosebumps along Azure’s arms. “Wouldn’t want the wrong ears to hear, now would we?...”

Flint tensed but attempted to remain cool. “What are you _talking_ about?” he snapped, taking an angry step forward.

Al shrugged nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t just almost revealed their biggest secret. “Oh, nothing. Just the reason why you three gather together every night and teach yourselves how to fight.” He casually stepped inside and closed the door behind him, causing everyone to flinch. Azure glanced around the room for anything she could use as a weapon, since this Alperan fellow clearly meant them harm, and she cursed herself for leaving her training weapons upstairs. They should’ve known someone would come for them eventually, after the incident with Raquel-

“You should know, I’m impressed,” Al continued, gazing around the room at anything except the three other teens, looking oddly solemn. “Pretty clever, the way you’re training but covering your tracks. If I were anyone else, I’d never be able to guess what you were up to.”

“What do you mean, ‘if you were anyone else’?” Flint asked, creeping towards the knives displayed on the kitchen counter.

“Haven’t you been paying attention?” Al chided, freezing Flint under his steely gaze. “I can read minds, but I assure you, no one else can.”

“You read minds…?” Azure mumbled, briefly forgetting her search for a weapon as an odd memory came to her - the scroll Frieza had found, with a list of magical elements… She could’ve sworn one of them had been -

That piercing stormy gaze fell on her with a curious gleam as Al said, “Azure’s got the right idea, she’s sees the truth.”

“What do you want with us?” Flint snarled, seemingly forgetting the knives as he took a few aggressive steps forward. “Enough games, _Alperan_ , why are you here? How much do you know?!”

Like a blade, Al’s gaze was back to Flint, metaphorically cutting him open to observe and study in ways no had before. A few tense moments passed before Al said snidely, “You should relax, Flint, before you break something.”

The only warning they got of the true level of Flint’s anger was a twitch of one eyelid and then Flint had slammed Al against the wall, pinning him by his neck with both hands. Actual, genuine fear flashed through Al’s face as his hands, pale and frail compared to Flint’s thick forearms, quickly gripped Flint’s wrists in a feeble attempt to get his hands off him.

Panic shot through Azure and she leaped forward, shouting, “Flint, no!”

“Gimme _one_ reason why I shouldn’t take you out right now!” Flint shouted, his grip visibly tightening.

“I know how to find Brooke!” Al choked out.

 _He what?!_ “Flint, let go!” Azure shouted again, reaching out and pulling against his arms. She weighed much less than Flint so when he let go of Al, she knew it was from him listening to her rather than any actually strength she might possess.

Al dropped to the floor, rubbing his neck and coughing, but Raquel closed in on Flint’s other side, effectively trapping him. “What do you know about Brooke?” Raquel demanded, brandishing a wooden spoon she’d picked up at some point.

Too late, Azure realized Al probably wasn’t armed. Neither were they, Raquel’s spoon excluded, but Flint’s sheer strength was something to be feared. She tried backing up and bringing Flint with her, but he held firm, glaring at Al for an answer.

“I wasn’t lying… when I said I’d transferred to your school,” Al coughed. “I was sent two days ago to investigate an odd occurrence that no one could confirm.

“Sent?” Flint voiced Azure’s thoughts. “You’re a spy!” he spat, looming over Al.

Al held up a hand placatingly. “Lemme finish,” he begged, staring up with wide, fearful eyes. “Nobody else knows about my powers, I’ve made sure of it. The only way I found out about your scheme was when I caught one of you thinking about it in class. At first, I was gonna turn you in and be done with it, but then I realized…” He stared over at Azure. “You’re doing this to _save_ your _sister_.”

“What difference does that make?” Raquel accused.

Slowly, wary of Flint, Al struggled to stand up. “It makes a _huge_ difference! You’re not acting out of hate for the government or anger at your financial situation, you’re fighting in _self-defense!_ They took your family, _of course_ you’d want her back!” Standing up fully, though his eyes still only came to about Flint’s neck, Al continued, “Then I heard about Raquel’s fire incident, learned about Brooke’s water incident, caught Azure thinking about lightning and ice, and - well…” He shook his head. “I can put two and two together. You guys are targets. And I knew right then and there I wanted to help you.”

Now it was Azure’s turn to scoff. “Help us? You’ve done nothing but harass us with your mind games since you got here,” she accused.

Al spread his hands, smiling guiltily. “I have a flair for the dramatic,” he admitted. “Not my brightest idea, but I like to have fun.”

“How on _earth_ are we supposed to know we can trust you?” Flint snorted, leaning into Al’s personal space again. “You’ve done nothing but mess with us and, after basically confessing to being a spy, you claim to want to _help_ us?!”

“I know, I know,” Al said. “Call me a deceiver, a traitor, whatever you want, but I’m not a liar. _Everything_ I’ve said so far is true, including finding where Brooke is. Listen, I’m your best chance at finding her! I know the main base of operations pretty well, and I can guide you to wherever they’re holding her.”

“You’ll guide us straight into a trap!” Raquel shouted, pointing her wooden spoon again.

Al made an X motion over his chest and said, “Never. Cross my heart. I _do_ really want to help you guys. I -” He stopped and swallowed. “I know what it’s like to have the government take your family away because they have powers.”

Maybe Al was just a really good actor but Azure’s heart throbbed in sympathy. He seemed honest, despite his odd behavior. She caught her cousin staring at her intensely and they had a quick, silent argument over whether or not to trust Al. Eventually, Azure’s puppy dog eyes won over and Raquel groaned, “Fine, he can stay.”

“On one condition,” Flint growled. “If I even suspect you to have betrayed us, I _will_ end you.”

Al only grinned slightly nervously. “I won’t let you down. Besides, if I really wanted to turn you in, trust me when I say I would have already.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, this chapter was supposed to be told from Raquel's point of view, as with most of the story, but it just kinda happened with Azure, so that's how it turned out lol


	4. Doubt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seems we're keeping the trend of changing perspectives every chapter or so. I'm down for this, I guess, lol.

As much as Flint hated to admit it, Al quickly became a regular, even familiar part of their schedule, both at school and after.  _ Especially _ after. Turned out Al knew plenty about self-defense and fighting strategies, though he always declined the offer to actually join in the practice. When questioned why, he simply shrugged and said, “Fighting’s not my thing. I hang out in the back and direct, or sneak around and sabotage, y’know? Granted, I haven’t had much field experience, but if I have anything to say about it, I’ll keep it the way it is.”

He even hung out with them over the weekend, showing up at their respective houses after politely asking where they would be meeting every day (without actually asking for addresses but arriving at the correct places anyway). Al was bright, a jokester, and even helpful when it came to assisting the other teens with their regular homework. Seeing as he was apparently some kind of government agent, he got away with no homework himself (which everyone openly expressed disgust and jealousy at, at which he just laughed) and therefore had more free time to spend with the group. Once or twice he suggested beginning to devise a plan to rescue Brooke but even without saying a word, Flint, Raquel, and Azure all agreed - they would wait for Frieza to come back. Regardless of whether she came back successful or not, they would wait for her.

When their blonde friend didn’t reappear the following Monday, Flint and Raquel grew a little uneasy but Azure was quick to assure them that Frieza said ‘about’ a week, not ‘exactly’ a week. Whatever she was doing, which Azure admitted even she didn’t know the exact details of, it was not a precise art. So they waited.

Then, late Tuesday night, she came back.

  
  


“Anything else you wanna go over?” Al offered, scrolling through the group’s collection of online bookmarks regarding self-defense and martial art techniques.

“Flint, come at me again. I wanna try blocking,” Raquel said, readying her mock katana. Azure reclined on her bed, content to take a break and watch for the time being.

“All right, but don’t complain if I bruise you again,” Flint teased, squaring off across the bedroom floor from the redhead. As he tensed his arms and readied himself to swing his padded plastic hammer again, a loud knock echoed through the house. He stopped himself short as everyone’s gazes directed towards the bedroom door.

“Al?” Raquel asked, shooting the teen an expectant look.

Turning around in the desk chair slowly with a growing frown, Al stared at the door and said slowly, “There’s no one there.”

“What?” Azure said incredulously, raising an astonished eyebrow.

“Maybe my powers aren’t reaching far enough, but… there’s no one there,” Al reiterated, leaning forward slightly.

“A doorbell ditch?” Raquel suggested, letting her sword go slack. Before the idea had long to sit around, the knocks rang out again.  _ Knock, knock, knock _ . Even the redhead had no words.

Blinking a few times and shrugging like this wasn’t a big deal, Flint set his hammer down and said, “Well, better see if we’re being haunted or something,” and headed out the bedroom doorway. After a moment’s hesitation, so did the other three. He lead the way downstairs to the dimly lit kitchen and foyer where the supposed ghost knocked once more just as they arrived at the front door. Hesitating a moment, but only a moment, Flint reached out and opened the door to reveal-

“Frieza!” Azure and Raquel cried at the same time. Sure enough, there was their tall blonde friend, with a backpack slung over one shoulder and looking rather tired in the bright, harsh light of the porch. “You’re back!”

A small smile graced her pale lips, lifting the exhaustion briefly. “Yes, I’m back. Safely and in one piece, thankfully. May I come in?”

“Oh, of course! Sorry,” Flint apologized, stepping out of the way and forcing the others to step back as well so she could walk through the doorway.

“How are you doing that?” Al cut in rather rudely, stepping forward with an intense stare.

Frieza’s smile disappeared and her icy gaze grew sharp. “Who are you?”

“I’m Al, mind-reader, psychic, whatever -  _ how are you doing that _ ?” he pressed again, meeting Frieza practically nose to nose.

“Doing what?” Azure asked for Frieza, seeing the suspicious look on Frieza’s face.

“Blocking your thoughts from me!” Al cried. “No one can do that.  _ No one _ . Not even people who know about my powers,” he accused. “So how are YOU doing it?!”

“You’re a mind-reader… yet you can’t read my mind,” Frieza repeated slowly, narrowing her eyes. Well, when she said it like that…

Al rolled his eyes exasperatedly and said, “Yes, it sounds dumb, I know, but  _ they  _ know!” He gestured to Azure, Raquel, and Flint around him. Frieza shot them all a confused, questioning look but they could only shrug. They’d never seen Al act like this before. But Flint could tell the situation wasn’t going to improve without intervention, so he made to change the conversation.

“Okay, so you don’t know and we don’t know, and Frieza’s never even met you before, so clearly she wouldn’t know, so how about we go back upstairs and listen to what Frieza’s done in the week since we last saw her, hmm?” Azure and Raquel both breathed a quiet sigh of relief and Frieza seemed much happier with Flint’s suggestion than continuing the odd interrogation. Only Al looked frustrated over getting cut off, but they could deal with him in a minute. Putting a firm hand on Al’s shoulder to enforce the message, Flint lead the way through the kitchen and back upstairs to Azure’s room, where the group’s training gear still lay scattered about haphazardly.

Frieza looked around curiously. “What’s all this?”

“Doing nothing was driving us crazy,” Raquel started to explain, “so we decided to get a head’s start on our martial arts training. You said that spinjitzu thing is a martial arts technique, right?” Al’s head jerked up from its sulking at the word ‘spinjitzu’ but he didn't speak.

“In a sense,” Frieza concurred. “I’m glad, I forgot about starting to learn defense until after I arrived at my destination,” she said, sliding her backpack off her shoulder and setting it on the floor. “At which point, I couldn’t contact any of you anyway.”

“Why not?” Azure inquired, settling down on her bed again while Raquel joined her. “Where did you go anyway?”

Frieza hesitated. “My master asked me not to disclose his location,” she said eventually. “But I went somewhere far out of cell service.”

“Oh.” The girls didn’t look satisfied with that answer but Flint was just curious. “Your master?”

“He’s rather old-fashioned,” Frieza admitted. Al scowled but thankfully kept quiet, for the time being. “But very helpful. As soon as I told him why I was there, he was willing to teach me as much as he could in our limited time.”

“And?” Raquel cut in eagerly.

“... And what?”

“Did you learn spinjitzu?” She leaned forward, green eyes bright.

Frieza paused and that tired look sunk back in. “Yes, and no,” she said slowly. Everyone frowned. “I was able to learn it, my master said I was doing everything right, but…” She shook her head helplessly, blonde ringlets bouncing slightly. “I was not able to replicate it.”

Flint scratched his chin. “What do you mean?”

“Spinjitzu, when accurately performed, is extremely distinguishable,” Frieza explained. “If you pull it off, it’s  _ very _ obvious. I just… couldn’t do it.” She frowned. “We couldn’t figure out why…”

Azure shifted in place uneasily. “So… you were unsuccessful?” she asked hesitantly.

“No, in terms of technique, my master and I agreed that I should be able to teach you three as well,” Frieza assured her. “It’s still a concern and we’ll do what we can with what we have, but chances are high that training will go according to plan.” Frieza took a deep breath and fixed a stern gaze at Al. “Now, would anyone please care to explain who he is and why he’s hearing about this?”

“Al came to us a couple days ago,” Azure said quietly. “He can hear thoughts and stuff and with us thinking about our mission all the time, it was apparently easy to track us down.”

“Track us down?” Frieza’s eyes narrowed suspiciously once more.

“I was sent originally to the high school by headquarters,” Al finally spoke up, looking grim. He quickly held up a hand. “Yes, I was a government agent. Key word:  _ was _ . Lemme finish,” he cut in as Frieza opened her mouth to say something. “My mission was simple - investigate a report of a girl whose hand supposedly lit on fire. I didn’t talk to any teachers or such, opting for a purely undercover investigation, and happened upon you four by chance. As I said before, I can read, or rather  _ hear _ , people’s thoughts and recent memories. When I first went in, nothing was obviously wrong but last week Thursday, I overheard Azure and Raquel discussing where they would be training for that evening. Their conversation, on the surface, was innocent enough,” he said with a casual shrug. “But few things can hide from me. I’ll admit, I was curious and began watching you three a little closer for a day. Some digging in the school records told me the fire incident was Raquel’s and how Azure was the older sister of the little girl who’d been taken from the elementary a few days prior.” He spread his hands. “I couldn’t help myself after that. I’d joined the government in the first place to find an old friend of mine and get her back and you guys seemed like not only a good idea, but a good chance.”

Frieza relaxed a little after hearing that, finding truth in the psychic’s words. Flint, however, was thrown off by something. “You joined to get your friend back?”

Al twisted his mouth uncomfortably. “I haven’t told you the whole story yet, and I will soon, but all you need to know right now is that when we were little, I told someone my friend had powers and that led to her to being abducted.” Flint, Azure, and Raquel nodded - this, they knew. “Well, when kids with powers get taken, they don’t  _ just _ vanish. The government puts them to work. I found out some time ago that the president, a guy named Chinwah, has been grooming my friend for years to be his personal magical tool.” He shook his head and clenched his fists, gray eyes brewing with emotion. “I swore then and there that I’d get her back. It’s my fault she’s there, I owe her to at least  _ try _ to get her out.”

Flint grimaced compassionately. Al may be theatrical, but when he spoke with as much conviction as he did now, one could tell he was speaking the truth. It was reassuring to know that his intentions were pure, as he had told them many times.

“What was her name?” Frieza asked softly.

Al blinked, apparently not expecting Frieza to take him seriously. “Alizeh,” he said. “Alizeh Moore. Her family took me in years ago after we became friends and…” He shrugged. “She means the world to me.”

Frieza nodded in understanding, stooping down to pick up her backpack. “All right, Al. I’m trusting you with the knowledge of our mission and identities. However, make one wrong move, lead me to believe you’ve betrayed us…” She scowled briefly at him quite intimidatingly.

Al waved his hands placatingly. “Trust me, I’ve already gotten the message,” he laughed awkwardly, glancing at Flint, who merely smirked back. After so many years of being helplessly tossed around at the whim of the school system, it felt nice to have control over something.

“It’s late, but I’d like to see the progress you’ve made on your own time,” Frieza said, directing the statement towards Flint, Azure, and Raquel. “How often have you been meeting?”

“Every night,” Azure piped in. “I take us home after school and we rotate where we practice. Tomorrow is Raquel’s night.”

Frieza’s gaze grew distant, seeming to ponder that for a moment. “Good. I’ll come with you after school.” She tilted her head to the side slightly, staring at Al once more. “And you? Where do you live?”

Al waved one hand dismissively. “Foster parents on the other side of town, but they’re pretty loose. As long as I show up once every few days, they’re fine with anything I do.”

“Foster parents?” Flint couldn’t help but ask. “You’re adopted?”

“I’ve always been an orphan,” Al said casually. “Long as I can remember. Never really knew my parents but I don’t really care. I’ve moved on.” The others, raised by either direct or close family, had no idea what to say to that, so Frieza took the silence as her opportunity to close the meeting.

“We’ll get fully caught up and introduced tomorrow,” she decided, shouldering her backpack again. “Let’s all get home and to bed, it’s late.”

Azure’s parents were home at that point, late in the night as it was, so they could have taken the other teens home, but Azure declined quickly in favor of allowing everyone to chat freely on the drive back. Her parents didn’t seem to mind and with a promise to return quickly, the group was on their way to carpool home. Flint expected some questions to pop up but Frieza surprised everyone once again with the specifics.

“So Al, how can we be sure we trust you?” Frieza asked quite casually from the front passenger’s seat. “You claim to have forsaken the government who ‘hired’ you, but how do we know you aren’t just lying to gain our trust? How do we know you weren’t taken like Alizeh and are now being used to investigate us to plot our capture as well?”

Al seemed to have been expecting that question, despite it seeming repetitive to Flint, and he was quick to respond, “No one back at headquarters knows I have powers. I’ve learned over the years how to keep it concealed and I’ve gotten pretty dang good at it. Besides, if anyone else knew I had powers, I would know by hearing them think about it, y’know?” He continued in an only slightly acidic tone, “and I’ll forget that part you added about Alizeh, thanks.”

Frieza was quiet for a few seconds, accentuated by the heavy silence left by the others as well, before she murmured, “I needed to be sure. With how many variables we have in the equation called our lives, it makes my job less stressful when I fully understand who and what you are to us.”

No one had a response to that.

Al was taken home first, as his home was the farthest away, and he bid everyone a fairly casual farewell, as if the group hadn’t just spent the entire ride there in silence. Frieza and Raquel went next, leaving Flint alone in the car with Azure. Normally he wouldn’t mind at all being so close to the lovely raven-haired girl, but they were both tense. He tried voicing a couple of the questions floating in his head but Azure seemed to know about as much as he did - which was to say, not much. It didn’t matter much anyway - it was late and they would all see each other tomorrow anyway, so he bid her a good night when he was dropped off at his grandparents’ house and tried his best to sleep.


End file.
